“The musicians, represented by the American Federation of Musicians Local 72-147, voted to reject a four-year deal that included annual income cuts ranging from two percent to 7.5 percent, the union said.”
Category: music
How Opera Is Bringing Healing To Earthquake-Ravaged Nepal
“Managing everyday life in post-earthquake Nepal was difficult for everyone, but the arts community was hit especially hard. Many lost their livelihoods.”
BBC Young Musician Winner: Classical Music’s Expense Problem
“Classical music is not elitist. The music itself is accessible to everyone. The real problem is the fact that it’s expensive and there is so little help from councils and the government.”
Music That Hovers Between Appearing And Disappearing: Alex Ross On The Wandelweiser
“This is not music for everyone. No music is for everyone, just as no language or no religion is for everyone. But [the work of this group of composers] poses a particular challenge to long-established notions of how a piece should unfold. Silence overtakes sound to the point where the work seems on the verge of vanishing.”
Great Britain – Land Of The Amateur Orchestras
“Germany might have the most professional orchestras in the world (a grand total of 130 full-time ones) but here in the UK we’re devoted to the world of amateur orchestras. There are so many, in fact, that we decided to make our series about symphony orchestras only, and excluded smaller groups with fewer than 40 players from our search.”
Maestras: Four Top Women Conductors Talk About Cracking The Glass Ceiling
Marin Alsop, Susanna Mälkki, Barbara Hannigan, and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla talk with Michael Cooper about gendered gestures, their careers, and the progress that’s been made within a generation.
Pittsburgh Symphony Contract Talks Running Down To The Wire
“The contract for the musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is set to expire Sunday night, and while the symphony’s management and musicians have agreed not to discuss the negotiations with the media, messages from both sides are getting across.”
Opera Omaha’s Ex-Music Director Sentenced To Prison For Stealing From His Disabled Mother
“Through Wednesday, John C. Gawf Jr. visited his mother, who suffers from dementia, every day at her nursing home. He also stole $113,000 from her bank account over an eight-month period to fuel his gambling addiction. Thursday, [he] was sentenced to one to two years prison on one count of abuse of a vulnerable adult.”
National Anthem Critics Have It Wrong
“The Star-Spangled Banner” echoes the past and gives voice to our present. It is a living historic performance that resounds with the hopes and devotion of many to the nation, while also serving as witness to the country’s legacy of contradictions and a vehicle for social comment. Kaepernick’s star-spangled protest is part of this tradition, and thus is a productive call for Americans to make this “land of the free” serve all its people. However, related claims about the song and its author as especially racist have been distorted and exaggerated.
Yuja Wang And Her Dresses Get The Janet Malcolm Treatment
“As she performed, the thigh, splayed by the weight of the torso and the action of the toe working the pedal, looked startlingly large, almost fat, though Yuja is a very slender woman. Her back was bare, thin straps crossing it. She looked like a dominatrix or a lion tamer’s assistant. She had come to tame the beast of a piece, this half-naked woman in sadistic high heels. Take that, and that, Beethoven!”